Josiah
Wedgwood was a dissenter and prominent member of the Unitarian Meeting House in
Newcastleunder-Lyme. However he does not appear to have made any special
provision for dissenters at Etruria.
Meetings
of Methodists took place in private houses in the village in the late 18th
century. The first Wesleyan chapel was built in 1808 in a field south of
Etruria.
In
1820 it was replaced by a new chapel on the main road near the centre of the
village which is still standing. This is a brick building with a classical
plastered front surmounted by a pediment and a date tablet illustrated in the
drawing below.
The
ground floor plan shows a typical chapel layout of that
period with a gallery above which accommodated an average attendance of 150 in
1851.
There
was a Sunday school at the back which originally occupied a thatched building.
In 1851 this was attended by 180 children. By 1864 this had been replaced by the
present building (see 1878 map) which
has now (2000) been sold off and is occupied as a separate property.
A
Methodist New Connexion Chapel was opened in 1819 further up the village (see
1832 map).
St
Matthew’s, the Anglican church, was built in 1848-9 north of the village on a
site given by the Duchy of Lancaster (see 1878 map of Etruria). Both the
Anglican church and the original vicarage and the Methodist New Connexion chapel
have been demolished.
(1760 onwards)Etruria Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
